French virtual cafe

A PERMANENT DIALOGUE BETWEEN A FRENCH FATHER, ALAIN, LIVING IN CHICAGO AND HIS SON, STEPHANE, LIVING IN SILICON VALLEY. BOTH HAVE A SERIOUS FIXATION ON ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING INVOLVING FOOD, WINES, SEARCH FOR NEW EXCITING RESTAURANTS AND RECIPES BOTH IN FRANCE AND IN THE U.S. THE FATHER HAS ALSO AN EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF FILMS AND IS AN AVID MOVIEGOER AND VIDEO WATCHER. THEY WELCOME ANYBODY WHO SHARES THEIR PASSION TO ASK THEM QUESTIONS ABOUT RELATED TOPICS.

December 11, 2015

The 11th arrondissement de Paris, that many
Americans discovered in a tragic context for the first time on their TV screens
on November 13 , is in fact one of the
most interesting districts of the French
Capital, especially for food and wine lovers.

Its very rich and passionate history is full of great, sometimes
painful and blood-stained and most of the time very joyous moments. From La
Bastille to Oberkampf and the Place de la République, and from the Place de la Nation to the Père
Lachaise cemetery, its cafés and bistrots are a permanent reminder of the lively,
happy, youthful, and convivial way of life of Parisians.

Place de la Bastille (photo .A. Maes)

On the night of November 13, the odious massacre of so many
innocents, happy to enjoy the many pleasures of week-end get together to meet friends or neighbors and eat, drink, love,
have discussions, dance, and listen to
music, was perpetrated by people who for various reasons have strong objections
to our way of life.

I called my brother, who lives in the “onzième’’ in Paris a
few blocks away from the café La Belle Equipe Rue de Charonne where 19 persons
were gunned down, and he was deeply shocked not only by the immediate proximity
of this atrocious event in his neighborhood but he also wondered about the
impact that it would have on the life of its habitants, and on the way of life
of Parisians at large.

We talked for a long time and at the end of the conversation
we briefly remembered the happy time we had when a year ago we celebrated his
70th birthday at Le Chateaubriand,
avenue Parmentier, a very creative and much loved bistro in the same 11th arrondissement. (see below)

On the next day, still feeling quite depressed, I wished I
could be in Paris instead of Chicago and share a comforting dinner with my
brother in one of my favorite bistros.

We must continue to have fun in these places. It is the best
way to resist to the negative impact of such horror on our lives and to say F.Y
to these fanatics who want to destroy them.

In fact, a few days only after that tragedy bars and
restaurants that had been the targets of the terrorists, reopened their doors
and their customers were back, sitting at the terraces and drinking their
coffee or beer at “l’heure de l’apéritif`’’ (happy hour). It was a clear answer
from Parisians to these lunatics who wanted to scare them out of their cherished
liberty, fraternity, and joie de vivre.

The Onzième Arrondissement is a trove of comfort food
and great regional French wines found in many bistros, some of them used to be my
favorites in Paris. One can say that the 11th is the epicenter in
Paris for both traditional ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’ and ‘’cuisine du marché’’ as
well as since 2005 ‘’bistronomie’’ (bistro-gastronomy).
But that latest trend is already fading away, and one can notice a return to
the cuisine bourgeoise and ‘’de ménage‘’ (sometimes called familliale).

Personally I always loved this area, especially over the
last 45 years which I spent in Chicago, and every time I am in Paris, I used to return
there with friends or even alone to walk around and eat in some of my favorite
small restaurants and bistros of the capital.

The 11th is an exciting mesh of sub-neighborhoods where
old artisan wood-working or other crafts shops, furniture and design shops, art galleries, casual clothes boutiques, specialty
food stores, and many other small manufacturing activities share the tight
spaces in small streets, alleys, courtyards, and passages.

And all over are monuments, plaques, and statues that
reflect the tumultuous episodes during the infancy and later adolescence of the French République after the 1789 Revolution.
The 11th has witnessed many workers demonstrations and protests over
the last 225 years, and long marches still take place nowadays between the Place
de la Nation and the Place de la République. The 11th used to have a long
tradition of voting for the parties on the left of the French political
spectrum

But over the last 40 years many of its ‘’working class’’
neighborhoods have been gentrified and the price of real estate in the 11th
went way up, so its ethno-social picture
and its political profile is no longer the same.

Some of my bistro memories are also associated to other more
recent historic dramas which had a personal impact. On September 11, 2001 early in the afternoon I
was on my way to CDG airport in Paris to catch a plane to Hanover,
Germany. The traffic was so congested
that I arrived to the check-in counter only 30 minutes before departure. I was
told that my seat has been attributed to a standby passenger and that I should
come back the next morning to catch another plane. When the airline employee
checked my ticket and found out that I had just arrived from the U.S, her facial
expression was suddenly very tense and grave. She told me that she was sorry
for what happened and hoped that my family was all right. I asked her what was going
on and she told me about the still developing event in New York. I took a taxi
back to Paris and turned the TV on to watch in horror the images of the WTC
buildings collapsing. One of the journalists said that there was perhaps another
American Airlines plane that might have terrorists on board and still be airborne,
but he could not say if it was on a domestic or international route. I
immediately thought about my elder son who was on his way to Paris at this hour
on an AA flight. I called him on his cell phone and after a few tense moments he
called me back. He had just arrived at CDG and was on his way to his hotel. But
he had just learned that his business meeting over dinner that night had been canceled
for obvious reasons. I told him that I was myself grounded in Paris until the
next morning and suggested that we should have a comforting dinner at ASTIER, at the time my favorite bistro
in the 11th arrondissement.

When we arrived there, the restaurant where the main street
level dining area consists of two rooms, was, as it is most of the time, totally
packed. I had reserved a table and soon we were ordering. While we sipped our
first glass of Bordeaux, we shared our mutual feelings about the shock we
experienced watching the news. We were both totally exhausted and emotionally
drained. At the tables around us people were all talking about the same tragic
subject but surprisingly the conversations were animated and customers
continued to eat and drink, and sometimes laugh. Obviously being with friends
and share good food wine and animated discussions was comforting for them. And
it also proved to be for us a therapeutic way to react to this horror. In the
middle of dinner Stephane and I realized that we should have called my wife,
his mother, in Chicago to let her know that we were both OK. We did so and she was
relieved but in some way very disturbed by the fact that we could eat and drink
and have a good time in such tragic circumstances. I told her that it was a
typical Parisian reaction and that life should go on. But for her who was
totally immersed in the horror of the terrifying scenes she was watching on TV
in the U.S. where it was actually happening live, it was totally impossible to
understand our own way of dealing with this trauma.

Last month, after the trauma they endured in that neighborhood, many Parisians and public media, encouraged their ''concitoyens'', via posters, articles, and grafitis, to return to their favorite cafés and restaurants and meet with friends, family, and neighbors over an apéritif, an expresso, or a meal. It would be the best cathartic and healthy way to share their griefs and express their determination to resist the bullying of these terrorists.
And that is exactly what Parisians did, as soon as the next 3 days.

So here are a few memories about that restaurant which for
me will always remain the symbol of happy times in the 11th.
Arrondissement.

ASTIER

44 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, Paris 11.

Tel :
01-43-57-1635 Metro : Parmentier or
Oberkampf

During themany
years I dined at Astier, this
charming and lively place was a very typical Parisian bistro based on
traditional ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’ dishes made from scratch with good quality fresh
products. It had been very popular with ‘’regular’’ Parisians customers since
1956 when it was created in a relatively modest neighborhood by Monsieur and Madame Astier.

It is also a favorite of many well-informed tourists, a lot
of them from the U.K and the U.S. The competent and pleasant staff was most of
the time able to give info on the dishes in English. The tables were dressed with red and white
checkered table cloth, and the walls were covered with old photos and diplomas.
My favorite dishes there were the
delicious terrines de campagne, marinated herrings, or leeks in a vinaigrette
dressing, as appetizers. As main dish I often ordered the Lapin à la Moutarde (rabbit in a mustard sauce), the Blanquette
de Veau (tender veal stew in a cream sauce) , the roasted guinea hen, or the
Navarrin d’Agneau ( very tasty lamb stew with small spring vegetables). And of
course you would call the waiter to bring to your table the extraordinary
plateau de fromages (cheese tray) where
you could choose as many cheeses as you wanted, and there were usually as many
as 20 different varieties. For dessert one of the stars was the famous “Baba au
Rhum” a fantastic airy and fluffy sponge cake generously doused with good
quality old rum. The wine list counted around more than 300 different wines,
including great affordable crus bourgeois of Bordeaux, marvelous Bourgognes
from small producers, and aromatic but cheap vins régionaux from little known wine growers of the South
West, Côtes du Rhône, Languedoc, Loire or
Alsace.

I always finished my
meals with a small glass of Vieille Prune de Souillac, a plum brandy from the
Dordogne Valley in Périgord. The owner Michel
Picquart who took over the restaurant in the late 70s would pour me a
generous shot from a bottle that was the queen of the old bar-counter.

Monsieur Picquart many years ago was one of the first
restaurateurs in Paris to sell
bio-dynamic wines.

In the late 1980s you could have a great dinner of 3 course
selected from the very attractive ‘’menu-carte’’ for around 25 euros. Nowadays it would cost you 45 euros.

But now you can have
access to WIFI if you need to check your e-mails. When I was dining there from
the late 70s to the late 90s the only activities we had at Astier were eating,
drinking, and conversing among friends. No need to check a smart phone every 5
minutes.

He sold Astier in 1995 to two of his closest associates who
were veteran employees of the
restaurant. Fortunately they kept the culinary traditions of the restaurant
and the high quality of its products.

But in 2006 they sold the place to a well-known restaurateur, Frederic Hubig-Schall.

And, having stopped going to Paris on business on a regular
basis every year, I never returned there. I understand that the quality is
still there but the restaurant was redecorated and the menu and the type of
dishes served modernized to adjust to the tastes of younger customers and new
culinary trends.

The chefs, since Hubig took over are young alumni of famous
2 or 3 stars Paris restaurants and their fine cuisine is much more
sophisticated from what I read. I will
return there to check it out during my next trip to Paris.

But in any case Astier was for me the epitome of good comfort
food bistro.

In 1995 Michel
Picquart became the owner of another excellent traditional bistro a few
blocks away ‘’LE VILLARET’’ ( 13 Rue
Ternaux, Tel: 01-43-57-8976 Metro
Parmentier). I have not been there for at least 7 years but from what I read it is still a very
good restaurant and I warmly recommend it.

In 2015 I would say that my favorite bistros in this
arrondissement are Le CHATEAUBRIAND and
L’AUBERGE PYRENNEES-CEVENNES.

Le CHATEAUBRIAND.

129 Avenue Parmentier

Tel: 01-43-57-4595

Métro Goncourt

The owner, Inaki Aizpitarte is an incredibly creative, I should say
uniquely inventive, chef. He is also a very nice and interesting man whom I
could listen to for hours talking about his cuisine, his herbs and spice blends
, that is completely out of the ordinary and therefore impossible to
categorize. This 43 year-old self-taught
cuisinier, born in the French Basque region, has become a model for many young chefs all
over the world. Quite an adventurer, he traveled around many countries before coming
back to France to work first as a chef at La
Famille, a minuscule bistrot in
Montmatre , and finally landing Avenue Parmentier in 2006 where he opened Le Chateaubriand, a minimalist restaurant in a space that used to
be a charcuterie (pork butcher shop).
You will not find here any sophisticated décor, fancy modern design furniture
or expensive china or glassware. The
tables and chairs are typical old wooden bistro not even covered with white
table cloth. The walls are almost naked. The wait staff consists of very
casually dressed young men, without aprons or black vests, but they are very
knowledgeable about the various very original and often unexpected dishes on
the no-choice single prix fixe menu, that changes every day. The wine list is
also a very unique selection from small independent growers, from various traditional
French regions but also sometimes from unknown appellations in other areas in
various countries.

You will be served several small dishes and 3 main courses
plus very creative aromatic desserts. All the dishes feature totally surprising
blends of colors, textures, spices, thinly sliced vegetables and fruits. And it
would be impossible for me to describe a typical menu, which by the way is priced
very reasonably at 70 euros for 8 dishes
.But the most interesting formula is the 135 euros menu with wine (or other
alcohol based very original drink), because the pairings are as original as the
dishes themselves. You have to book your reservations a couple of weeks in
advance especially since the restaurant has been rated the 21st best
restaurant in the world in the 2015 San Pellegrino “The World’s 50 best
restaurants” list.

But you must have an open mind to enjoy such a great meal. Do
not go there if you like ample portions and traditional French cuisine. You would leave feeling frustrated.

L’AUBERGE PYRENNEES-CEVENNES

106 Rue de la Folie Méricourt

Tel: 01-43-57-3378

Métro République

This place is the complete opposite of Chateaubriand that
represents the contemporary bistro trend in the 11th. It is a temple
of abundant and well-prepared traditional regional French dishes served the old
provincial way with good humor and the welcome is always warm and charming. The décor is comfortable and sort of rustic
like a country inn in the Southwest of France. In fact many of the dishes here,
always served in enormous portions as it used to be in provincial ‘’auberges’’,
are pleasant representatives of the Lyon area (frisée aux lardons, quenelles,
sweetbreads, saucisson chaud, charcuterie) and of the Southwest, the cassoulet
being a very popular dish there that is supposed to be one of the best in
Paris. The wine list, rich in very good
and affordable regional wines from Burgundy and the Southwest, is quite
attractive.

One again my last meal there goes back to a few years, but I
keep very good memories of it. It was one of the most comforting and joyous
repast I had with 2 other friends in this neighborhood.

A few others of my
favorite bistros in the 80s and 90s were:

Au C’AMELOT

50 Rue Amelot

Paris 11

Even though the decor, plates, and silver, seemed to have
been assembled from bits and pieces found in a flea market, and chances are
that your table was too close for comfort to the next one, you would enjoy a clever and very tasty ‘’cuisine de
marché” in this establishment. Every day the chef-owner , Didier Varnier who was working
under Christian Constant at The Crillon, would compose a short menu made of
only a few inventive specials according to the season and what was best at the
farmer’s market. The consistent quality
of the ingredients and the imaginative precision of the cooking let you forget
about the short list of options on the menu written on a blackboard.

It was a very successful formula. Only one menu for a fixed
price consisting of one first course, one fish dish, one meat dish, and one
dessert which could also be cheese. The chef`s soups were spectacular in
winter. The home-made pastries, especially the fresh fruit tarts were very
popular.

Lunch was a fantastic bargain and the wine list includes
some very interesting regional options
at very attractive prices

The restaurant was sold in 2006. Then again in 2010 to
become Qui Plume La Lune, a
“restaurant gastronomique” under a young but gifted chef, Jacky Ribault , who was awarded a Michelin star in 2014.

LE CLOWN BAR

114 Rue Amelot

Tel: 01-43-55-87-35

Métro : Filles du Calvaire

This was a very picturesque but modest wine bar and small bistro, where
clowns and artists who worked at the nearby Cirque d’Hiver (a beautiful indoor circus that still exists)
, opened at the turn of the 20th century , would come to eat a bite
and drink wine. But it has been
relatively recently acquired by young and successful restaurant entrepreneurs who
expanded and redecorated the place and created a real creative menu. I have not been there for 20 years but used
to love the old place.

Here is what I wrote about in 1988:

This incredible wine bar and bistro
next to the ‘’Cirque d’Hiver’’ has only a few tables but whether you sit
down or you stand at the old ‘’zinc’’ counter to eat the ‘’ Plat du Jour’’
(special of the day which could turn out to be a very tasty like daube of beef
or lamb with beans) or limit yourself to a plate of sausage, rabbit rillettes,
or smoked ham, you will appreciate the special ambience and admire the beautiful
art deco ceramic tile frescoes on the theme of the circus which decorate the
walls, or the beautiful glass ceiling. Meanwhile enjoy a glass or two of very decent
Beaujolais Villages , Côtes du Rhône, or
Fitou and have a chat with other patrons. Very ‘’sympathique’’…

LES AMOGNES *

243 Rue du
Faubourg Saint Antoine

This restaurant closed in 2006. But here is what I wrote, in
1986 I believe, about this place that I loved and visited many times .

Thierry Coué ,
the chef-owner, who was at one point the sous-chef to Alain Senderens at ‘’l’Archestrate’’, has been offering
for more than 12 years, in a pseudo country inn décor which could have been more
exciting, one of the most innovative and reasonably-priced ‘’menu-cartes’’ ( 27 euros), for such a level
of quality, in Paris. Without pretense but with a very precise cooking
technique, he works tasty marvels with good quality simple products, especially
fish and great vegetables, which creatively offer unusual combinations of
aromas. The wine list is full of small
regional little known gems.

CHEZ FERNAND

17 Rue de la Fontaine au Roi

I have very fond memories of Fernand Asseline, a former charcutier , who was the jovial and
bon vivant owner of this charming bistro, essentially devoted to the cuisine of
his dear Normandie where he was born. The man was doing many of its excellent products
himself, especially his fragrant smooth butter, his country bread, his cream, his
sausages and tripes, and he aged his camembert in the cellar of the restaurant.
Several times he made me taste his old Calvados apple brandies. He probably had
the most spectacular collection of them in Paris. And with some of his typical
regional dishes, such as a fabulous roasted in skate wing with a white wine and
cream sauce, andouillettes (chitterling sausage) rabbit stew, or duck, he would
bring you a bowl of a delicious apple cider (the fermented one that had 6 or 7
degrees alcohol content) made by some family member in his village in Normandy.
His Pont-L’Evêque cheese was probably
the best I have tasted, and his home-made apple tarts doused in Calvados with his own whipped cream were addictive.

Eventually he expanded the bistro into a full restaurant called
Les Fernandises, which still exist s
in 2015 but is now owned by some Basque
people. Needless to say the bistro dishes from Normandy are gone.

Upon learning about his death, I never returned to Chez
Fernand.

In 2015 the 3 bistros that are the darlings
of the critics and attract a younger client base which includes lots of ‘’Bobos’’,
the ‘’Bourgeois-Bohème’’ folks who now live in the 11th are :

Le BISTRO PAUL BERT

18 Rue Paul Bert

Tel:01-43-72-24-01

Metro
Faidherbe Chaligny

A blend of traditional cuisine bourgeoise and its contemporary
‘’bistronomic’’ version.

The popular owner Bertrand
Auboyneau had for many years a solid following of regulars who love this
type of mixed style of dishes that can
please the ‘’branché’’ (au courant) Parisians as well as the numerous international
tourists and a few older customers who love high qualitysteak-frites.

SEPTIME

80 Rue de Charonne

Tel : 01-43-67-38-29

Metro Charonne or Ledru Rollin

Since it opened in 2011 by the talented chef Bernard Grébault, who belongs to the
generation of the new young lions who learned their trade and technique in the
kitchens of famous starred chefs, in this case Robuchon and Passard, you need to reserve weeks in advance to secure
a table. His cuisine is based on high quality products but treated with lots of
modern creativity.

CHARDENOUX

1 Rue Jules Vallès

Tel: 01-43-71-4952

Métro
Charonne

Launched in 1904 this very old traditional bistro has a splendid
décor. Since 2008 when it was reopened after intensive redecoration, the
kitchen under the management of a very popular chef Cyril Lignac, recreates
the dishes of the cuisine de ménage of yesteryear.

July 05, 2015

French success stories in California are not limited to High Tech. Jean-Charles Boisset, a leader in the French wine industry has resurrected a dormant historic winery, Buena Vista, in Sonoma, California. He just launched a very unique museum focusing on antique French tools and equipment dedicated to viti and vinicultures. This must-see exhibit just opened in the historic main building of the

Buena Vista winery in Sonoma that he
splendidly restored.

My
wife and I fell in love many years ago with the Sonoma wine country when we
started to come every year in early May to visit our older son, Stéphane, my
occasional blogging partner, and
since 2005, our grandchildren. Stéphane,
who has been living and working in Mountain View, at the heart of Silicon
Valley, since the late 1990s shares my passion for wine and as a Mother’s Day present
he offered us a 3 days mini-vacation about 12 years ago at a great inn called
the Gaige House in Glen Ellen, just north of
Sonoma. We loved it so much that since then our annual trip to Sonoma
has become a very enjoyable rite of spring.

Photo Alain Maes

We have discovered many great natural sites, restaurants, museums, shops, and above all friendly and relaxed people between Petaluma and Geyserville, where Stéphane’s wedding took place in a winery inJune 2003. When we are in Sonoma County we sometimes have the feeling that we enjoy this area almost as much as my native South of France where I grew up surrounded by vineyards, and olive, chestnut and fig trees. Later on I lived in Provence for a few years, particularly during my college years when I studied at the University of Aix-en-Provence, where I met Nancy my American wife, and I also worked in Avignon. This allowed me to visit the wine producing regions of the Côtes du Rhône, Côtes du Ventoux and the Côtes du Lubéron. And many times since we moved to Chicago in 1970, we have returned for summer vacations in Provence and in the Lubéron where we have friends. In 1994 we visited with Yves Rousset-Rouard, a well-known film producer and owner of the Domaine de La Citadelle in Ménerbes that produces very good Côtes du Lubéron wines that I discovered when he was presenting them at a trade show in Chicago. He was also the mayor of that charming little town at the heart of the Lubéron that Peter Mayle put on the French map of many Americans in his book “A Year in Provence”.

But the main reason we were there was to see Rousset-Rouard’s famous collection of more than 1,000 corkscrews of all kinds and shapes, some of them more than 300 years old, that he had assembled in a very attractive ‘’Musée du Tire-Bouchon’’, located on his estate. Nancy wrote an article for the Chicago Tribune about the museum.

I mention Provence and the Lubéron, and our
deep attachment to this region, because we found many areas and wine districts
in the Sonoma wine country that reminded us of the Lubéron. We particularly
like their harmonious landscapes and the ‘’joie de vivre’’ of their people,
many of them wine growers and restaurant owners. Over the last 12 years we
visited many wineries between Healdsburg and Sonoma and progressively discovered
some very exciting wines from well-established labels as well as little gems,
with strong terroir qualities, in districts such as Russian River, Dry Creek,
and others.

This
year though, we were trying to find new places to explore, and particularly
museums or art galleries that might have escaped our attention during preceding
trips. On May 6 in the morning, Nancy was reading the May-June issue of a Californian
magazine, Gateway, that she had
found in our beautiful mini-suite at the Gaige, when she suddenly exclaimed ‘’I
found a museum that looks very interesting, especially for you”. She passed me the
article by Kathleen Thompson Hill, titled
‘’Tools of the Trade’’ and it immediately fascinated me, not only because
it reminded us of the Musée du Tire-Bouchon in Ménerbes, but also because it
mentioned that all these tools were from
France. They wereexhibited a
few miles from our hotel in a historic
winery, Buena Vista, in Sonoma now owned
and completely restored to its past
splendor by a well-known French wine producer and négociant, Jean-Charles
Boisset, who very explicitly likes to call himself a ‘’viniculteur’’.

The
article described a large collection of tools, implements and instruments used
all year-long by wine growers for the planting and caring of their vineyards,
and by wine makers for the ‘’vinification’’
(wine making processs) of their wines from harvesting to bottling.

I immediately did some research on my iPad and
found out that this exhibit was originally assembled, and shown in a small town
called Loché in Bourgogne (Burgundy, France) as a ‘’show’’ called Le Vigneroscope. This very successful
exhibit was created in 1999 by a vigneron (wine grower), mechanical and
electronics engineer, and wine historian named Philippe Bérard who for decades had collected more than 1,200 harvesting
and wine-making tools from Burgundy, and later from all the wine growing areas
of France.The show was produced by Jean-Claude Boisset (Jean-Charles’s
father), the founder and owner of the family-owned very large and powerful
wine conglomerate located in Nuits-Saint-Georges in Burgundy.

Jean-Claude
Boisset, the founder of an international wine group

Jean-Claude Boisset was, and still is, is a very
ambitious, creative, and innovative entrepreneur who was completely atypical compared
with the very traditional and in some way conservative world of ‘’vignerons
bourguignons’’where very often vineyards
and wine houses are transmitted from father to childrenfrom generation to generation.
In 1961,when he was only 18, this son of elementary school teachers
dreamed of becoming a “négociant en vins de Bourgogne’’. He purchased 4
appellations of regional wines that he resold rapidly with profit.Then3 years later he acquired and planted asmall parcel in
Gevrey-Chambertin, Les Evocelles, which was actually the first base forthe Maison Jean-ClaudeBoisset. After a short period inVougeot,
he moved for good in 1970 to Nuits-Saint-Georges where he soon established its
headquarters in a modern building that was originally the site of a former
convent. From there he pursued a very rapid
expansion. In 1990 his group’s strategy started to focus more on higher-end
appellation quality Burgundy wines.

Since1999, many assets, managerial as well
as research, development and production, of the Burgundian family estates
(altogether close to 30 appellations) are
now recentralized with the increasingly
active participation of his son
Jean-Charles and his daughter Nathalie as top executives in their beautiful
Domaine
de la Vougeraie.

In
2002, Gregory Patriat a very
competent ‘’viniculteur’’ as he
likes to define his job combining both the functions of “viticulteur” (supervising
the whole care of the vineyards), and
“vinificateur” (wine making and
oenological development of various appellations) became a key architect of the
second phase of development of the ‘’collection’’
of quality labels at Boisset.

After
multiple acquisitions the group was renamed ‘’Boisset La Famille Des Grands Vins’’. Among the better known
French ones you can recognize a few iconic names from Burgundy such as
Bouchard Ainé, J. Moreau, Ropiteau, Antonin Rodet, Bouillot, Jaffelin. From Beaujolais:
Mommessin and Benoit Lafont. In the Côtes du Rhône wine houses such as Bompas, Salavert, Lavigne, and in Languedoc
Skalli (Fortant de France). The most recent acquisition comes from the Jura with the old house of Henri Maire.

Several
other participations and partnershipswere
established in other parts of the world, such as Italy, South America, and
Quebecwhere Boisset ownsan apple cider business, ‘’La Face Cachée de la Pomme’’.

Boisset
innovated again with the launchingin
2005 in the U.S. of French Rabbit, an
ecological way to sell good quality vintage wine in “Tetra Pack” containers. It was a bigger success
in North America than in Europe.

Jean-Charles
Boisset ‘’ the family’s American link’’

To
refresh my memory, I read a few more articles about both the Boisset family in
general and Jean-Charlesin
particular. I met him very briefly when I visited the Boisset booth at the Vinexpo show in New-York in 2002. I
remember a very dapper and cheerful man who spoke English fluently and at the
time discussed a possible partnership with a Canadian winery. Over the
following years he moved to Napa Valley and in 2009 married Gina Gallo, a grand-daughter of Julio
Gallo, who still has a very important managerial role at her family’s company.
They live in a spectacular house that was designed and built for Robert Mondavi, the patriarch of Napa Valley.

Far
too many of the numerous articles written in newspapers and magazines, and the TV
interviews unfortunately insist on Jean-Charles’s life style. Some mention his
occasional ``flamboyant`` eccentricity, his taste for luxury and theatrics, his
devouring passion for ‘’high quality in everything he touches’’, his love of celebrations
and festivities, his many awards. But relatively few journalists focus on his
most impressive assets: his incredible sense of entrepreneurship, his total
dedication to his French and American family and to many good causes, and his
non-stop pursuit of achievable dreams. In fact he has inherited many of his
father’s qualities, but added to them one particular and very important touch:
he is a very strong believer in the American way of doing things, but at the
same time he is still very attached to his French and Burgundian heritage and
traditions. Above all the man is curious about everything related to history,
American as well as French, and of course about everything related to wine-past
and present.

Photo BoissetHe
could be considered a true example of the perfect blend of French and American
culture. We should not forget that even though he was born surrounded by
vineyards in Vougeot, some of his most
formative high-school years were spent in Washington DC, and that his
grand-parents took him with them when he was young to visit Northern California
during a summer vacation. He was only 11 years old when they went to Buena
Vista, a visit that obviously left a mark on him.When
the fortunes of his father’s business in the U.S. started to develop, Jean-Charles
asked to let him take charge of their small Californian office. In spite of his
son’s relative inexperience since he was still in his early 20s, Jean-Claude Boisset accepted this new challenge. The rest is history.

Jean-Charles
negotiated and acquired several well-established Californian wineries. The
first one was De Loach in 2003, then Raymond in 2009, followed by the acquisition of Lockwood, Lyeth, and finally Buena Vista
in 2011. He also created his own brand, JCB, out of his HQ at Raymond winery in St. Helena where he
manages his American company Boisset
Family Estates.

Jean-Charleswho strongly believes in sustainable
and organic farmingimplemented
biodynamic methods at Raymond’s that had been put to practice earlier at La
Vougeraie.

Our
visit to Buena Vista and our interesting conversation with ‘’ The Count’’ about
the history of the winery and its original founder.

I
called Buena Vista and asked if we could visit the museum that same afternoon
and talk to somebody from the PR dept. there. I was told that it was possible
and that someone would show us around and answer our questions. At around 2:00
PM, after a short (7 minutes from
downtown Sonoma) but beautiful drive on a small country road bordered by
splendid leafy trees, we arrived at the site of the winery’s parking. Then we
walked down a path where we encountered our first surprise. On the right side
of that path leading to the winery’s main building strange silhouettes were
standing on its hilly banks among fruit trees. It did not take long to
recognize which historical figures from American history as well as French
literature or Greek antiquity, they personified.

Photo Alain Maes

We
entered the imposing stone building through the main open door and found
ourselves in a beautiful tasting room with a long bar to the right and I asked
one of the young men serving wine if he knew whom we should ask for to be able
to visit the museum. He placed a couple of phone calls then told us that our “guide”
was on his way.

After
a few minutes a man entered the door from the outside, stopped in front of us
and extended his hand greeting us with a surprising “Hello, I am the Count”. I
looked at my wife wondering if like me she thought that this strange character whose
persona, stature, and voice corresponded more to an image of Jean Valjean in “Les
Misérables” than to a winery PR person,
but she just smiled and shook his hand. The man was wearing a top hat, an elegant
black frock coat, a cravat around the old-style collar of his white shirt, and
a brocade vest. He walked with an elegant cane, and was sporting very aristocratic
a well-groomed grey beard, sideburns, and a mustache.

Photo Alain Maes

After
I explained who we were and our interest in the museum, he told us that the large
tasting room where we stood used to be the press house of the old winery. In 1862 Buena Vista was the first winery in
California to have a gravity-flow press.

The
‘’Count’’, actually impersonated by
a talented actor named George Webber,
who also serves as an occasional marketing ambassador for the winery , then
took us to a visually impressive tour of the ‘’Champagne cellars’’where you can taste wines directly
from the barrels. When the recently restored caves were excavated in 1864 they were the first ever in
California. They were modeled after their
European predecessors. However, for reasons I will explain later no wine was
produced in those cellars between the late 1970s and 2012.

After
a short visit to the Champagne Cellars and its amazing barrels, “The Count”
took us to sit in a beautifully appointed Private Reserve tasting loungeand told us the amazing historyof the beginnings of Buena Vista, and of its present owner and renovator Jean-Charles
Boisset.

Photo: Scott BeregiaThis
very long epic story started in 1857.

That year a 42 year-old Hungarian
immigrant,Agoston
Haraszty De Mokesa, born
in a noble but financially unstable family from Pest, arrived in Sonoma.
He had always been fascinated by viticulture since he grew up surrounded by his
family’s vineyards and orchards back in Hungary. He immediately decided that it
would be the perfect environment to plant a vineyard and to build a winery. He
found the right place and called it Buena Vista, “the beautiful view” in
Spanish. And this is where he built a home for himself and the winery of his
dreams which he transformed rapidly into a successful wine business, a research
lab, and an experimental field for the 300 seeds and cuttings of varietals that
he brought back in 1861 from Europe. Before him a Frenchman, Jean-Louis
Vignes had brought the first “vitis vinifera” to California.

He
contributed to the development of a new viticulture in Northern California
through the creation in
1863 of the Buena Vista Vinicultural Society, and he also contributed to the launching of a school of
agriculture, which many years later became the University of California at
Davis, famous for its academic program on wine-making.By that time he had decided to call himself The Count of Buena Vista

Photo from historical archives BoissetBut it is
interesting to know that the Count’s adventures did not begin in Sonoma.

When
this very ambitious, enthusiastic visionary
arrived in the U.S in 1839, he created the town of SaukCity in Wisconsin where he planted hops and started to brew beer.
Then in 1849 he traveled with a
wagon train to San Diego where he planted grapes and fruits, and at the same
time completely reshaped a whole district of San Diego. He was elected and held
the first office of sheriff in San Diego, then was elected to the California
State Assembly in 1850. He met and eventually developed a friendship with the
legendary General Vallejo, the last
Mexican governor of California, who strongly advised him to visit the area north
of the San Francisco Bay. And that is what he did.

He
died in Nicaragua in 1869, probably devoured by an alligator, when he fell from
a tree in a jungle river. As a memory of this sad event JCB placed a stuffed
alligator near the entrance of the gift shop.

After
his death the winery continued to receive great reviews and awards until 1878
when financial problems forced Buena Vista to stop its wine production and sell
the estate to a family for its private use. Its potential rebirth was further
doomed by a succession of problems such as the Great Depression, Prohibition,
the phyloxera infestation, the 1906 earthquake, and some other curses.

After
WW II in 1949 the Bartholomew family
bought the property, worked on the damaged buildings, and after replanting a
vineyard produced wine again with the help of a well-known Russian-born oenologist
and wine maker, André Tchelistcheff.
So this historical winery and its vineyards, the first of its kind in
California, was practically left unexploited for practically 70 years.

But
in 1989 the caves had to be closed again because of the damage caused by a new
earthquake.

Finally,
in 2011, after many years of inactivity and neglect Buena Vista was purchased
by Jean-Claude Boisset and integrated into his Boisset Family Estates portfolio.

Between 2012 and 2015, JCB launched an intensive project to completely restore the
property,including retrofitting the center core of the main
building to render it earthquake-proof.

This
proved to be a valuable and successful investment since the retrofitted
building went through a new powerful earthquake on August 24 2014, but did not
suffer any structural damage because of the anti- seismic protection that had
been implanted.

Six major labels of wines produced by Buena Vista
are now commercialized from there:
Private Reserve, Vinicultural Society, Heritage Collection, Carneros, The
Count, and Sonoma.

The
Wine Tool Museum

As
I mentioned earlierthe Boisset
family acquired Bérard’s tool collection in 2001. In 2010 the original exhibit
was transferred to a larger three-room space at the ‘’Imaginarium’’ in Nuits-St.-Georges where it was enhanced with a
high-tech and successful 40 minute ‘’sight and sound’’ show renamed ‘’Sacrée Vigne’’. The story focused on 3
progressive stages of grape planting, harvesting and wine making in 3 rooms: the
vineyard, the wine, and the men and women who make it.

In
2015 Jean-Charles Boisset, brought the show to Buena Vista and reorganized it
in a single large room, in an adaptation that better fit an American audience.
A part of the original tool collection remained at Boisset’s in Burgundy. Philippe
Bérard contributed to the setting of the new exhibit at Buena Vista.

This
American version of the exhibit, that officially opened at the end of May, has
benefited from up-to- date audiovisual techniques as well as a very good voice-over
narration by George Webber, the actor who personifies “The Count”.

The
walls on the stairs to get to the museum which is on the third floor of the
Champagne cellars building are decorated with a collection of antique glass
decanters displayed in glass cabinets. But there is also an elevator for the
handicapped or less energetic visitors. George Webber took us there by this
elevator.

Photo Alain Maes

The
first thing you notice is a long banquet table in the center of the room elegantly
set with period china and stemware, lit
by chandeliers. Sitting and or standing by the table, are mannequins in festive
attires, personifying the two sons of the Count who had just married the two daughters of General Vallejo..

Then
we started to watch the successive displays of 19th and early 20th
century French tools and equipment,
which are sometimes suspended from small chains, sometimes encased in special
cabinets or panels all around the room against the beautiful walls made from
stones from the nearby Mayacamas mountains.

And
to accompany the visitor in his discovery and understanding of the evolution of the farming, planting, harvesting, wine
fermenting and aging, and barrel making, through the ages, some videos, music,
and of course the narrative, tell you the whole story. Every time you move from
one “station” to the next, the lighting of the set, sometimes brightly colored
sometimes more subdued, changes and this
produces some quite effective special effects which sometimes emphasize the threatening aspect of cutting
tools, or the beautiful visual aspect of small presses,
elements and tools used in woodworking
and barrel making.

There is a logical historical and technical progression from the first displays (left from the entrance) to the last one on the other side of the room.You start with early, almost primitive tools used in the caring of soil and vines, such as plows, picks, grafting and pruning knives, shears, secators, and amazing soil injectors. Photo Drew Kelly

Then you see everything used
during the harvesting time and early stages of grape pressing: baskets, boxes,
fouloirs, screws, small presses, and small wooden fermentation vats. There is
quite an impressive group of pomace cutters in the center wall.

Photo Alain Maes

Photo Alain Maes

But
to me the most beautiful part of the exhibit is on the right wall where you can
admire all the stages of woodworking that lead to the manufacturing, assembling
and burning of barrels. From saws and axes to cut down the trees and tools to make staves, to batissoires,
doloires, gabarits, and spigots.

When the
20 minute show was over I told George Webber that the quality of his voice
reminded me of the voices of French professional actors and narrators that I
worked with for several years at the French National radio in Paris before
moving to the United States. I told him that instead of being called the Count
of Buena Vista, he should be nicknamed the ``Orson Welles of Sonoma``.

He
helped us to travel back to the time when Agoston Haraszty’s visionary dreams became reality.

Museum Tours are available daily
by-appointment at 11 AM, 1 PM and 3 PM (walk-up visitors will be accommodated
as availability allows; groups of eight or more require advance reservation).

In addition to the $25 tour and tasting,
families will also be offered a choice of a museum-only experience for $10 per
person, and children with paying adult are free.

Normally
the ticket price of the guided visits include the tasting of a few Buena Vista
wines.

November 13, 2014

Very old traditional bistros serving simple
good food and providing pleasant and relaxed service still exist in Paris, even
in trendy Saint-Germain-Des-Prés.

One of these few remaining treasures,
Le Petit Saint Benoit, a surviving bastion of
simple good old cuisine bourgeoise, has been doing business at the same
location since 1901. It is even better today than 50 years ago when I
discovered it. Because the majority of the dishes it serves, contrary to the
semi-industrial food found in 70% of French restaurants, are cooked in house. And
they still buy most of their products at the market.

Saint-Germain-Des-Prés unfortunately
is not as exciting as it was in the 50s and 60s .

In the early 60s, when I moved to Paris from Aix-en-Provence,
the Saint-Germain- des-Prés district, in
the 6th arrondissement, was one of the most lively, diverse, and interesting neighborhoods of Paris. Its heart
was the famous Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, nowadays renamed ‘’Place Sartre et Beauvoir’’ in honor of
some of its most famous inhabitants, located at the intersection of the
Boulevard Saint Germain, the Rue Bonaparte, and the Rue de Rennes. In addition
to the splendid Romanesque church, built in the 12th century on the
site of the oldest abbey in Paris, this area was celebrated for a few cafés.

They are often a ritual meeting place for well-known, or aspiring to be, intellectuals,
politicians, musicians, artists, actors, students, ‘’bohemians’’ of all kinds,
and generally speaking ‘’noctambules’’, meaning people who loved going out at
night. The most popular was and still is, Les
Deux Magots, with its great terrace facing the church where people,
including tourists from the world over would fight at lunch time and after 5:00
PM to get a table and chairs where they could drink a whisky, a café, or a
‘’coupe de Champagne’’, eat a light but elegant meal, and look at people
walking around.

And in these days the people walking in, out, or around les
Deux Magots, actually named for two old Chinese statuettes perched high against
the walls, inside the main room, on both sides of the entrance, offered a full
time show. It was a non-stop flow of celebrities, starlets in search of a
producer or a sugar daddy,young wealthy
students with fast sport cars, international businessmen, elegant ladies
showing off with super ‘’à la mode’’ outfits, and sometimes pretty young
American tourists or students. But I loved watching, and listening, the musicians
and artists, the beggars chased constantly by the waiters, and some lunatics
yelling at the crowd.

And then there was Mouna,
a bearded character riding an old bike, his crumpled jacket or sweater always
covered with badges claiming his political convictions, which were pacifist and
vaguely anarchist. He would try to sell you his self-published weekly
newspaper, ‘’Mouna Frères’’. Everybody knew Aguigui Mouna, whose real name was
André Dupont, who talked to the crowd for hours in a hilarious and totally provocative
style about peace, injustice, social problems, and stupidities of both the
modern life and French politicians. In fact Mouna himself ran an un-official campaign
as a candidate for president a few times in the seventies.

Next door, to the
left, on the boulevard at the corner of the small Rue Saint Benoit, was Le
Café de Flore, which attracted famous writers, artists, composers, film
makers,and stage actors. In the very early part of the 20th century
many intellectuals from the right such as disciples of Charles Maurras who had
his office there, members of the Action Française movement etc. would
congregate in this café. But from 1917 to the end of the 1930s the Café reached
a tremendous notoriety among the literary and artistic community. Well-known
writers and artists such as Apollinaire, Hemingway, Aragon, Sartre, Camus, Simone
De Beauvoir, Picasso, Zadkine, Giacometti, would meet their friends there and have
long and passionate discussions. This is here that the first member of the Surrealist movement met around their leader André Breton.

Across the boulevard
was the Brasserie Lipp, where politicians
and executives would come at night to eat its famous ‘’Choucroute garnie
Alsacienne’’, oysters, and marinated harengs (herrings) with potato salad, and to
drink beer and good white Alsatian wines.

A block to the West, in front of the Mabillon subway
station, was a bi-level bar-night-club and restaurant, La Pergola, where the very lively and noisy upper floor became a very
popular disco-dancing place where you would find a strange mix of street-wise guys,
and some gays. This establishment does
not exist anymore.

Across the street, just behind the Saint Germain des Prés church,
was, and still is, one of my favorite cafés, La Rhumerie Martiniquaise, known from its great choice of rums and
rum-based cocktails from the French Caribbean island of Martinique. La Rhumerie
was much less pretentious and cooler than the other above-mentioned cafés. They also serve simple small dishes.

But in these days I was still a poor student at the nearby
La Sorbonne, and could not afford to have a drink or even a “croque-monsieur”
at les Deux Magots.

So at night I would walk down on the very short (only 28
numbers) Rue Saint Benoit, which in
these days was packed at night with lots of ‘’noctambules’’ who patronized the
many very popular bars, jazz and night-clubs, and dancing places, such as Le Montana my favorite bar on the
street for its stiff drinks and great collection of good jazz records, Le
Bistingo, Le Billboquet, and Le Club Saint Germain.All these great places have been closed for
many years. So the joyful ebullience of that street is not the same anymore.

In 1963 I would walk all the way to No. 1, just at the
corner of Rue Jacob, and sit at a
small table on the sidewalk in front of L’Épicerie.
There the jovial and generous ‘’patronne’’(owner) would serve me une saucisse-frites, a warm sausage with french
fries, a piece of bread and a glass of red wine for 2.50 French francs, the
equivalent of 50 American cents in those days, and that would be my cheap but
tasty dinner. I would listen to the animated conversations of other clients,
some of them well-to-do Parisians living in the neighborhood, and often to
foreign students playing some instruments or singing a few feet from where I
ate. The name L’Epicerie (The Gocery Store) was justified by the fact that
besides serving some hot sandwiches and drinks, it was actually still selling a
few basic food and beverage items, including canned goods for those who came
home late to an empty pantry. L’Epicerie stayed open until 2:00 in the morning.

The discovery of the Petit Saint
Benoit bistro

But most of the time my attention was focused on the happy
people dining at small tables, very close to each other, on the sidewalk across
the street, at the Petit Saint Benoit,
a very old-fashioned bistro that had been owned and operated at the same place
by the same family, or their descendants, since 1901. The décor was authentically turn
of the century (19th to 20th), with its revolving
entrance door, the partially wood-covered walls, leather banquettes, bistro
tables covered with red and white checkered cloth, copper hat and umbrellaracks, old mirrors, and a real wooden zinc covered counter in the
service, bar, and busing area.

My favorite little spot though was located at
the end of the main dining room, near the kitchen. It was,
and still is, a marvelous wooden chest of 99 tiny drawers, each with its own
number on white enamel tags, where regulars who came for lunch almost every weekday
would store their own napkin.

How many times did I walked by the diners sitting at the
terrace to read the description of the dishes and wines hand-written on big
blackboards.

It took me 3 more years before I could finally eat lunch at
this marvelous terrace, when my wife and I moved to Rue de Seine a few blocks
away. And even when I came back on business to Paris during the early seventies
and eighties, and stayed in a hotel nearby, I would sometimes have lunch at the
Petit Saint Benoit.

But, in the 1990s, I had disappointing dinners there twice,
and for no real reason I stopped coming to this dear old place for years. To
tell the truth my tastes and financial means had evolved and I had found other traditional
French bistros in other neighborhoods whose menus were perhaps a little more sophisticated
and offered exciting new dishes.

A few weeks ago I was in Paris and I took my traditional
walk in my old neighborhood of Saint-Germain-Des-Prés, and I realized that the
whole area had changed a lot, and not for the better. Now most of the small
charming hotels are very modernistic expensive 4 stars, such as the luxurious
Bel AmiRue Saint Benoit precisely, or the Hotel Villa Rue Jacob where I used
to stay when it was the more modest Hotel d’Isly.

All over the place antique shops or book stores, such as La
Hune, my favorite one at the corner of Rue Saint Benoit, have been taken over
by brand name clothing and fashion boutiques. All this of course has completely
transformed the originality and character of the area and had a visible impact
on the true nature of the local population.

The whole neighborhood is now full of flashy people, flashy
cars, flashy outfits, and thousands of cell phones and tablets. In cafés, the
intellectuals, the artists, the writers, and the charming bohemians of the 60s
have gone somewhere else. And the oldest inhabitants are either dead, too old
to go out, or were no longer able to pay the rent or to afford the very high buying
price of their old apartments, and moved to other parts of the city or to the
suburbs.

Now the atmosphere, the objects, and even many people seem
tacky to me and do not look at all as real ‘’germanopratins’’, the name that we
used to give to the people who live in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

But suddenly while I was walking down Rue saint Benoit, I
found a reason to smile again. Le Petit
Saint Benoit was still there, at number 4, its sidewalk tables full of
seemingly happy customers who took their time eating their lunch and enjoying
the beautiful and warm sunny October weather.

I looked at the menu on the Blackboard outside, and all the
good old dishes that I used to love were there too, and the prices were still
very modest. The menu changes practically every day even though certain dishes,
such as the hachis Parmentier or the steak tartare, are almost always on the
blackboard.

I could not resist, pushed the old revolving door, was
tempted to ask for a table near the chest of napkin drawers that was also still
there, but the very pleasant owner offered me a table outside and I took it.

I sat at a very tiny table and looked at the No. 5 building
across the street, where the famous French author and playwright Marguerite Duras lived on the 3rd
floor from her arrival in Paris in 1941 from Cochinchine (Indochina) to her
death in 1996. I know that she frequently crossed the street to eat here, very
often at a table on the sidewalk, and I could not keep thinking that I was
perhaps seating at the exact same table where she ate.

Soon, as I could expect, a young lady came and asked me if I
minded her seating at the table next to mine, and soon afterwards she was
joined by an older woman who proved to be her mother, with whom she engaged in
a very intense conversation. Obviously she did not see her mother very often
and had numerous subjects of disagreement with her. They were discussed during
the whole meal without even lowering their voice to prevent me to listen to some
very intimate details of their tumultuous past relationship. At one point the
mother who was sitting next to me and was smoking an electronic cigarette
between each dish, noticed my coughing, and offered to switch chairs with her
daughter so that the smoke would not affect me. I accepted her kind offer of
course.

I had ordered a very tasty, and well spiced, Terrine de pâté
de campagne du chef, which was accompanied by a good Dijon mustard, traditional cornichons and pearl onions, and a basket of very fresh baguette.
(4,50 euros). I enjoyed a glass from the ``pot’’ of a decent house Bordeaux that
was served in a plain thin half-liter bottle (10 euros).

Next I had a perfectly cooked Cuisse de Canard Confit (duck
leg) served with slices of roasted small red potatoesand cloves of garlic in the duck jus (13,50
euros).

I finished my meal with a very sizable slice of perfectly
ripe Brie de Meaux, that had been suggested by the owner (4,50 euros). The
check was only 32.50 euros (41 dollars). The tip is always included in France.
And that is not expensive for a 3 course lunch with wine in Saint-Germain-Des-Prés
in 2014.And let's not forget that since sales taxes and tip are included in Paris it make the check 33% less that what you would pay in Chicago.

The ladies had ordered a Hachis Parmentier, (12,50 euros)
which has been a house specialty since the 1930s, and a house-prepared Steak
Tartare au coûteau, made from beef from the Charolais region (10 euros) and it
looked perfect, since the meat is knife ground. The hachis, probably made after a family recipe looked and
smelled pretty authentic to me.

I took the time to study the menu, and found out that some
of the dishes that I used to enjoy in the 60,s and 70s, were still on the menu,
plus a few more recent new items: Poireaux vinaigrette (3, 5 euros), oeuf dur
mayonnaise (hard boiled egg with home-made mayo)(2,50), filets de Harengs with Pommes de Terre tièdes
(marinated herrings fillets with lukewarm potato salad) (6,50), Terrine du jour (pâté) (4,0), Faux-Filet de Boeuf sauce Poivre(strip steak with a peppercorn sauce, and
French fries 18,50), Boeuf Bourguignon (13,50), Cassolette de Poissons au Petits Légumes
(small casserole of fish with baby vegetables, 13,50). And the cheeses, Brie de
Meaux, Cabécou, Camembert, or Roquefort with butter, are still modestly priced
at 4,50 a piece.

The old desserts such as the Pot de crème, the Crème Mont Blanc
with whipped cream, the Milk and rice pudding, the Charlottes, or the more
recent Fondant au Chocolat Noir, as well as the old fashioned ice creams such
as the Nougat glaçé, the Parfait au café, or the Citron Givré, cost 5,00 euros.

And, as I said earlier, the wine
list includes a good selection of decent Bordeaux, and other smaller regional
appellations offered both in carafes, and in bottles, including half a dozen of
them in 75 cl bottles for less than 20 euros. But anyways most wines are among the cheapest
I ever found on a Paris wine list.

The service is pleasant and fast and the waitress still
calculates your check by hand on a corner of the table paper cover. By the way
the restaurant does not accept credit cards.

The owner, Monsieur Daffis, who seemed to be a very
professional and attentive manager, when he is not walking around to make sure
every table is having what it needs, and
stopping to talk with regular clients, is in the busing-bar area preparing
drinks or drying glasses with a cloth.

He is the son in law of the last owner, who I believe took over the place in 1960, who was still related to the original family.

He says that even though the number of meals served daily
has diminished since 1998, his total annual sales have progressed every year
since that time. Many satisfied customers become regulars and send their
friends here. The ‘’quality’’ policy that he has implemented is very successful
and contributes to a solid business.

He told me that he is very demanding about the quality of
his products, especially the vegetables, meats, seafood and cheeses, that he
purchases at the Marché de Rungis, a few miles South of Paris, a gigantic wholesale
market of fresh foods.The largest such market in the world, it replaced the
famous ‘’Halles de Paris’’, located in the famous Baltard Pavillionsin the first arrondissement, which were demolished
in 1969.

He is also very attentive to the evolution of its client
base, but intends to preserve the unique traditions of this ‘’historic``
restaurant.

Needless to say it was very comforting to renew with this
part of my past and to find out that some Parisian restaurateurs are still proud
to enjoy the pleasure of providing good food based on fresh products in a simple convivial and
authentically French environment.